When your body can’t get all the energy it needs, it slows down some of the processes irrelevant to survival. This includes the reproductive system and testosterone production, meaning that your testosterone levels will eventually decrease (study, study, study, study).

b) When in a state of caloric deficit, the body is under stress. And when the body is stressed out, the adrenal cortex produces stress hormones (cortisol, epinephrine, adrenaline, etc).

When the content of those stress hormones rises in the bloodstream, levels of testosterone start to drop pretty much dose dependently (study, study).

If you don’t know how much thyroid hormones affect testosterone levels, here’s some examples: in this study, the researchers found out that when the thyroid hormones are increased, from the low end of the spectrum, back to normal healthy levels, testosterone levels nearly doubled. This case study had similar results.

Dieting and testosterone in a nutshell: Leaner men have significantly higher testosterone levels than their fatter peers, but as you can see from the pointers above, the actual process of losing weight and being on a caloric deficit to get to those low body fat levels, is quite hard on your male hormone levels (regardless, it’s still worth it).

So that’s why I made you this article of 6 ways on how to keep testosterone levels high when on a diet…

NOTE:If you’re looking for a diet-plan that will have you burning of slabs of body fat, without completely crushing your testosterone levels, and muscle mass in the process, take a look at the Eat Stop Eat program. It’s a simple protocol that is based on intermittent fasting and optimal macronutrient ratios so that you can lean down without going crazy, preserve your T, enjoy life, and not lose all your hard earned muscle mass in the process.

1. Make Sure to Eat Enough Dietary Fat and Cholesterol

The biggest dieting and testosterone mistake that most guys make, is that they avoid dietary fat and cholesterol.

Surely, fat is pretty dense in calories, but as a man you should never ever consider a low-fat diet for losing weight…

…That’s because testosterone, the principal male hormone, and its production are highly dependent on fatty-acids and cholesterol.

It’s not exactly sure why this happens, but one theory is, that the body has to synthesize glucose from non-carbohydrate sources (pyruvate, lactate, glycerol, and glucogenic amino acids) when there is no carbohydrates present.

The process of generating glucose from non-carbohydrate sources adds more stress to the body, and thus, would lead to increased stress hormone levels, and therefore also lower testosterone levels.

b) One of the precursor hormones of testosterone (GnRH) adjusts its pulsation rate according to the glucose levels of the body. When there’s high amount of glucose present, the brain releases more GnRH, and thus your body synthesizes more testosterone. And when there’s low amounts of glucose in the body, the brain releases less GnRH, which slows down testosterone synthesis (study).

As glucose is mainly generated from carbohydrates, it’s quite obvious that low-carb diets also mean low blood glucose levels, which leads to slower release of GnRH, and therefore also lower testosterone.

Bottom line: Low-carb diet’s are not pro-testosterone, at least not in the long run. As a rule of thumb, try to get around 40-60% of your daily calories from starchy carbs when cutting.

3. Consume Some Capsaicin

Capsaicin is an alkaloid found in all chili peppers.

It’s basically the compound that makes them hot, and it’s not hard to guess that the more hotter the chili, the more capsaicin it contains.

But what has capsaicin to do with dieting and testosterone?

Answer: This is not the strongest of evidence, but in this rodent study, the researchers found out that capsaicin supplementation protected testosterone molecules and the testicular leydig cells, from the oxidative stress caused by a caloric deficit.

Surely it would be nice to see if these effects hold any water in human studies, but as rodents and humans have quite similar reproductive systems, I would say that it’s not a bad idea to eat plenty of chili’s and/or supplement with capsaicin while on a diet.

4. Be Smart With Exercise

Without a doubt, the largest factor in weight loss is the diet.

But you can often speed up your results with some exercise, simply because it burns off more calories.

So exercising is a good thing in terms of weight loss. However, if your goal is to preserve testosterone levels during the diet, then not all exercise is created equal.

Here’s why:

a) As far as aerobic exercise goes, endurance-type of training is notorious for increasing cortisol levels (study, study). As your cortisol levels are already elevated from the caloric deficit, then jogging on a treadmill for hours on end is by far the worst way to exercise if you’re looking to preserve that big T.

Instead of endurance training, do something short and intense. Preferably HIIT (High Interval Intensity Training), wind sprints and so forth.

However, when it comes to dieting and testosterone levels, the fast dieting method has more prominent negative effects that are associated with a calorie deficit, such as higher cortisol, lower testosterone, and lower thyroid hormones levels. Another downfall of fast dieting is that you’re also going to lose more muscle mass too. On the positive side, you don’t have to endure with those negative effects for long as the process is ‘fast’.

Then there is the slow dieting way, where you create a smaller caloric deficit (usually 10-20% off of your maintenance calories), meaning that it’ll take bit longer for you to reach your goals, but the negative effects of the caloric deficit are not that bad. The negative side of this, is that you’ll have to endure those effects bit longer.

Either way is fine, both have their positives and negatives, and this is a matter of finding which way suits you. I personally prefer the fast way, and for the sake of testosterone, -25% is the maximum deficit that I’m personally ever using.

Also, no matter which of the ways you choose, slow or fast, it’s recommended that you take breaks from the diet once in a while to reset leptin and bump up the thyroid activity.

6. Stop Stoking the Metabolic Fire

…And without a doubt, the worst one, and the biggest lie ever, is this claim:

“You have to eat six or more small meals a day to stoke the metabolic fire”

No, you don’t, that’s the shittiest piece of advice ever, and here’s why:

a) There’s simply no evidence backing up the claim, none whatsoever. However there’s a boatload of evidence showing that fewer bigger meals, are as good – or even better – at boosting metabolic rate (just read this post with plenty of studies to see for yourself)

b) Every single time when you eat something, your testosterone levels will plummet. No matter if it’s only carbs, only protein, or only fat, or a mixture of them all. Whatever the case, testosterone drops with each meal (study, study, study, study). That occurrence is too complicated to explain in this post, but it likely has to do with two other hormones, insulin and leptin.

Looking at those studies, it’s obvious that eating small meals for every 3 hours or so, would also lower your testosterone levels for every 3 hours or so.

Conclusion on Dieting and Testosterone Levels

Men who are lean, have significantly higher testosterone levels than their fat peers. Meaning that yes, losing weight is a good idea. However the actual dieting and caloric deficit can be quite hard on testosterone production, and that’s why you should follow the pointers in this post to preserve your testosterone levels while cutting.

Hopefully you’ve now learned how to keep testosterone levels high while cutting. Just eat enough fat and cholesterol, don’t forget the carbs, consume some capsaicin, do short but intense workouts, and stop eating multiple small meals a day 😉

Those should get you covered.

NOTE:If you’re looking for a diet-plan that will have you burning of slabs of body fat, without completely crushing your testosterone levels, and muscle mass in the process, take a look at the Eat Stop Eat program. It’s a simple protocol that is based on intermittent fasting and optimal macronutrient ratios so that you can lean down without going crazy, preserve your T, enjoy life, and not lose all your hard earned muscle mass in the process.

I’m finding what works best for me when I cut is intermittent fasting (dinner or dinner + snack only) and a pretty big calorie deficit on days I don’t lift – Tues, Thurs, Sat, Sun. On days I do lift (M, W, F) I eat 3 meals, paleo with some potatoes, and a reasonable calorie count. I think you get the best of both this way. With 4 days a week of IF’ing you’re getting a pretty solid calorie cut, but since you’re eating “big” relatively speaking almost every other day, the calorie cut isn’t severe enough, long enough to really crash your T levels. 😉

Yup, that’s a good strategy. I do similar setup when I’m on maintenance calories. On lifting days, I up my calorie intake, and on rest days, there’s a small deficit.

Like a mini cut-bulk cycle.

Arun G

can I do 15 minute daily HIIT without breakfast?

Matt Roomel

Love the web site of yours Ali. Keep up the great work man. How many calories do you take it on your intermittent fasting days? What are your calories on your work out days? And how long do you do for intermittent fasting for? More than 14 hours of fasting or around that many hours?

yadadamean

No wonder when I was bulking 6 months ago I was getting boners all the time and now I am cutting and barely get them 🙁